18 Sep
2007
18 Sep
'07
11:45 p.m.
On 18 Sep 2007 at 22:59, Andrew Burton wrote:
An article I read in 80 Micro (I only have issues 1 to
60, so must be between 1980-86) stated their were only 7 types of barcodes.
In a recent Lonelygirl15 "episode" (err.. back in June/July?) on YouTube Bree
(played by Jessica Rose) stated that there are now 300 types of barcodes. No idea whether
that's true or not, but certainly barcodes are everywhere - we use them to register
samples at the lab I work at (much quicker to scan a barcode than to manually enter
primary data - location, analysis required etc.)
I'm not entirely sure how they can differ that much as they are essentially visual
binary, with special markers to mark the start and beginning of the barcode.
Recently on slashdot there was a report of a technology using colors
and shapes to fit something like 3GB on a letter-sized sheet of
paper. Lotta skepicism expressed on that one.
I remember the Paperbytes thing as requiring very little more than an
input pin and a phototransistor for scanning. I made my own wand
using just such (built into an old felt-tip pen) and wiggled an
unused status line on a serial port. A smooth, no-jitter swiping
action was required to get the best results. And there were some PBs
that I just couldn't read no matter what I tried.
Cheers,
Chuck